Obamacare enrollment down as Dec. 15 deadline looms

So far, fewer people are signing up this year for health insurance on the marketplace set up by the Affordable Care Act. The open enrollment period for buying health insurance at HealthCare.gov runs from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15. The HealthCare.gov marketplace, created by the law passed in 2010 that’s also known as Obamacare, is mostly tailored for people who don’t have health insurance available through an employer and who need individual or family coverage. Many consumers can qualify for tax credits to help cover the cost of health insurance premiums. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that 63,751 people in Alabama had bought or renewed plans on HealthCare.gov as of Dec. 1. That’s about 9,000 fewer than last year for approximately the same time. Nationally, enrollment has dropped about 11 percent through Dec. 1, from about 3.6 million in 2017 to about 3.2 million this year. In Alabama, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama is the main provider of plans on the ACA marketplace. Blue Cross and Blue Shield offers nine individual plans that comply with the ACA. Overall, premiums on those plans will decrease by 0.5 percent next year, the company said, although that varies some by plan. Bright Health also offers health insurance plans on the ACA marketplace in Alabama, but only for Jefferson, Shelby and Walker counties. Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, a non-profit organization that researches and analyzes health care issues, urges people not to wait until… [Read full story]